Article: Tech to drive real-time business decisions

Technology

Tech to drive real-time business decisions

Ranjan Tayal, Sr VP, Ramco Systems, says it's imperative for HR & IT to bring about the SMAC transformation together
Tech to drive real-time business decisions
 

With the advent of a sensitive but tech-savvy generation, the need to build a future-ready work culture is looming heavily on the HR team

 

What is the size of the SMAC industry in India and globally? How much budget has Ramco allotted to it?

Gartner predicts that by 2017 SMAC will drive more than 26 per cent of the total enterprise software market revenue, an increase from 12 per cent in 2012 - representing over $104 billion new revenue from SMAC. At Ramco, our product philosophy revolves around MUSIC, which in essence is similar to SMAC. MUSIC is an acronym for Mobility, User Interface, Social, In-Memory and Context aware applications and represents a convergence of technology and usability trends. All of Ramco’s products are designed considering the concept of MUSIC. A substantial part of our R&D investments are towards building the MUSIC capability into all our offerings. Ramco’s products are offered both on “Public Cloud” and “On Premise”. The solution is enabled by the underlying architecture Ramco VirtualWorks (RVW). Thus, the multi-tenanted cloud capability is inherent to all our products.

SMAC is going to be the leading disruptor in this decade in terms of businesses and industries. What kind of effect it will have on the job front?

There are many advantages one can reap from the convergence of various technology trends as they are intertwined. Real-time decision making and predicting future through Analytics; the ability to access information anytime, anywhere through Mobility; ensuring everything is networked through being Social and the availability of all this at a fraction of the cost through Cloud, SMAC has indeed impacted the entire business gamut. While the impact of SMAC in a business context is widely accepted, one cannot discount its impact on the opportunity it creates for the workforce. Specialist job roles such as UI specialist, Mobility Expert, Social Media evangelist in a business context are all evolving in the job market.

It appears that these technology trends are here to stay and to a great extent are driven by business needs. Accordingly, the talent and job market, which represents the supply side, will reorient itself to meet the demand. Most of the roles in an organization are redefined. With Cloud getting wider acceptance, the role traditional IT played is getting redefined to greater extent. With the proliferation of BYOD, IT policies and Information & Data security related policies are getting strengthened. The new age workforce and businesses are putting newer demands and HR and IT have to now come together to meet their expectations.

How will SMAC affect the larger talent market and what are its repercussions?

Technology has been revolutionizing the way we hire, interact and engage with our talent pool. HR professionals today face the challenge of engaging and retaining their employees. With the advent of a sensitive but tech-savvy generation, the need to build a future-ready work culture is looming heavily on the HR team. Managing Gen Y is indeed complex and sensitive as we are dealing with an emotionally charged yet energetic and talented set of people. HR professionals are thus leveraging SMAC to reach and recruit the right resource. It helps in integrating the vital functions like inducting, assessing and awarding good performers.

Also, with globally dispersed employees, organizations are always trying to coordinate work across multiple locations. Technology has been transcending the physical boundaries and a result, oriented work culture is beginning to get more and more important. As far as the job/ goal is being accomplished, the job location is not a matter of concern. The SMAC concept has been aiding in managing employee performance / productivity to ensure a connected workforce.

How will SMAC aid in talent mobility and talent migration?

The single biggest technology-based transformation that organizations are experiencing today is mobility. Most of the organizations are following the BYOD concept thus resulting in the proliferation of multiple devices at the workplace. Also, the biggest challenge organizations face, is managing their geographically dispersed employees.

Mobility enables an employee to have instant access to information through mobile applications anywhere, anytime. People are fundamentally changing the way they work, and in order to remain competitive, organizations are making HR applications accessible through mobile devices. Through mobility, organizations are able to provide instant access to employee self-service portal, thus improving employee productivity by providing information real time. In the last three to four years we have also seen enterprise class data being intermediated through mobile phones.

Also, with the availability of features like NFC (Near Field Communication) based attendance, employees can now record their attendance when they are working at remote sites, offsite or at a client’s location, on a not so expensive Android based smartphone or even the supervisor’s phone that acts as an Attendance Kiosk.

Are HR teams prepared for SMAC? Is it changing the nature of HR's job? How is SMAC changing the prevalent HR processes and systems?

HR personnel are strategically deploying the SMAC concept across HR processes and systems. Recruiting employees into business is an area that has really taken the lead on using social channels to maximize effectiveness. LinkedIn has indeed become the primary tool used by recruiters. Employers have the ability to narrow down the talent to what they are looking for very easily. HR teams are also able to offer employees the opportunity to integrate their phones and tablets for making basic transactions at the workplace such as viewing payslips, creating leave requests, and also allowing managers to easily authorize leave requests, in the same way. By moving towards HR-enabled mobile applications, SMAC will make HR teams and more importantly the business as a whole, more efficient as it takes technology to a new level.

The availability of HR analytics solutions makes it easier to use the data and to contribute to business decision making. The HR Analytical tool also helps contribute to business improvement and HR decisions by using the intelligence of the reports to find the highest performing employee and get to know what they are doing well. Last but not the least, having software available from anywhere at any time is a massive advantage. However, in this transformation, HR and IT have to collaborate and work together very closely to achieve the above objectives. Together they have to “run a Relay and not a Sprint.”

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Topics: Technology, #Innovation, #ChangeManagement

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